Monthly Archives: November 2020

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Trump’s lack of character on full display

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We knew all along that Donald Trump lacked the underpinnings of decency and dignity to assume the role of president of the United States.

Now we get to witness the flailing, feckless futility of a man on the cusp of losing an office he had no business occupying in the first place.

Joe Biden is poised to be declared the 46th president of the United States of America. He will deliver a victory statement perhaps tonight, or maybe in the next day or two.

Donald Trump? He is fomenting the lie for the ages, that illegally cast votes propelled Biden to victory. Moreover, aides close to Trump say the Sore Loser in Chief has no intention of conceding defeat to Biden.

This is a dangerous and pitiful example of what history will record as the most freakish political aberration in American history. Ponder this for a moment: The president of the United States seeks to undermine the very basis of our representative democracy by alleging corruption in the election process that continues to unfold before our eyes.

It gets worse. Republican officeholders who have aligned themselves with Trump are giving him a pass; some of them are endorsing the dangerous conspiracy nonsense that Trump is spouting.

How does that saying go? That silence is an expression of complicity? Yep. That’s it. They are bringing shame onto themselves and allowing the disgraceful charlatan who has masqueraded as president to do the same thing.

Despite all of this, I want to offer a bit of good news.

First, each court that gets a legal complaint from Donald Trump alleging illegality in the voting process is going to waste zero time in deciding whether to accept or deny it. They know that time is not on their side, that the clock is ticking toward the inauguration of a new president, so they have to act in rapid-fire order.

Second, it is my fervent hope — and growing belief — that the U.S. Supreme Court, if it even accepts a complaint, will deliver a quick decision that will end this charade once and for all.

Third, Biden’s victory comes with a mandate to govern that Donald Trump never acquired. He will have rolled up a handsome majority of ballots cast. Biden’s Electoral College victory appears headed to matching the electoral win that Trump scored four years ago.

Lastly, the president-elect will conduct himself with the class and grace that has been missing from the presidency for the past four years.

First things first. Donald Trump might need to get escorted from the White House by federal marshals. I would pay real American money to see that event take place.

It would be the final disgrace that Donald Trump could bring to the nation’s most exalted public office.

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Waiting for GOP ‘heroes’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein has said that the real “heroes” of the Watergate scandal were the Republicans in Congress who stood up to President Nixon and told him he needed to resign.

Nixon didn’t have the support in Congress to withstand an impeachment accusing him of abuse of power and covering up the scandal that began in 1972 with a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Leaders of the GOP congressional caucus delivered the news to the president.

Looking now at another Republican president seeking to undermine the democratic process that is about to elect Joe Biden as president, one has to wonder if there any GOP heroes left to stand up to Trump.

I fear there are none. I fear they won’t tell Trump to give up a futile and unpatriotic fight that seeks to undermine a free and fair election. I could be wrong; indeed, I am wrong way more than I am right on most matters.

I just want to see and hear a “hero” emerge as they did in 1974 when an earlier president faced certain political doom. Donald Trump’s time as president now appears doomed as well, as Joe Biden inches closer to an Electoral College victory.

Instead we are hearing Trump issue ridiculous and defamatory accusations of conspiracies and “illegal” votes being cast.

Waiting for the heroes to emerge. Are they out there? Anywhere?

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Trump = extreme danger

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My fellow Americans, those of you who watched Donald Trump just a little while ago on national TV were handed a reason to believe that this individual must lose the presidential election and be ushered out of the White House as soon as humanly possible.

Joe Biden stands on the verge of winning the election. He is just a few electoral votes away from scoring the most important presidential election victory in our lifetime.

Trump, however, has now contended while standing in the White House press briefing room that Democrats, the media and the Biden campaign have conspired to steal a duly conducted free and fair election.

Donald Trump has just uttered arguably the most dangerous lie during his tenure as president of the United States.

This individual is utterly without shame, without conscience, without decency. He has alleged that illegal votes have been cast against him; there isn’t a shred of evidence of anything coming close to what Trump has alleged.

Donald Trump has denigrated neutral polling organizations, local elections officials who belong to both political parties, the media (naturally!) and the former vice president of the United States who is likely to defeat him in his bid for re-election.

Is there a more blatant case for removing this guy from office? Can there be any rationale for keeping him in office?

“If you count the legal votes I easily win,” Trump said, providing no evidence. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

“I’ve already decisively won many critical states, including massive victories,” Trump said.

Allow me to restate the obvious. There has been zero evidence of “illegal votes” being cast. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president who is out … of … control!

national news, Uncategorized

POTUS damages democratic process

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me this bit of candor, which is that I hadn’t given much if any thought to whether a president of the United States would actually speak against the democratic process in the country he was elected to govern.

Until now.

Donald Trump is demanding that states that are counting ballots cast in this week’s presidential election should stop the ballot-tabulation process. Yes. The president wants them to stop counting ballots that were cast legally in a free and fair election.

Is there a precedent for this kind of coercion, this sort of bullying? I cannot think of it.

Donald Trump entered the presidency four years ago with no knowledge or experience with government, or with public service. That ignorance is playing out in full view as Donald Trump is being forced inch by inch out of office by the vote totals run up by Joseph Biden, the seeming winner of the presidential election.

Trump is filing court challenges. The courts are routinely dismissing them. The challenges seek to cast aspersions on the legality of the ballots cast; the courts are saying the challenges have no merit.

Trump has taken to Twitter to insist that states stop counting the ballots. He has no singular authority to make such a demand. But he persists and adds to his already shameful conduct.

We will get through all of this eventually. I am waiting with bated breath for a declaration that we will have a president-elect who then can commence the transition from chaos to collegiality within our federal government.

As for Trump, it falls on him to decide whether he will exit the office with dignity and pledge the traditional “peaceful transition of power” to Joe Biden and his team … or whether he will continue to conduct himself in a manner that brings abject shame and ridicule.

national news

Well … Justice Barrett?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You’re a newly minted, crisp-and-clean justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. You were confirmed after a nasty fight in the U.S. Senate.

You haven’t yet decided any major cases and then you might get a complaint from the president of the United States — the fellow who nominated you to the high court — alleging illegality in the vote-counting after an election he is likely to lose.

If you are Justice Amy Coney Barrett, do you really want to have your judicial legacy scarred forever by deciding that Donald Trump’s complaint actually has merit, when legal scholars on both sides of the divide suggest that his complaint is utterly preposterous?

Trump’s complaint might not even get that far. The high court might decide against even considering it. That is my hope. It’s not necessarily my expectation.

If it does go to the court, I cannot possibly believe a majority of the justices — and that includes Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Trump’s other two appointees — would agree on a complaint that effectively overturns the results of a legitimate, free and fair election.

All of the justices pledge to “follow the law.” From my perch out here in Flyover Country, the ballots are being counted according to the law.

The U.S. Constitution is working.

national news

Trump lost Arizona all by himself

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Right-wing radio gasbag Marc Levin took it upon himself to fire off a Twitter message aimed at Cindy McCain, wife of the late Vietnam War hero U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Cindy decided during the presidential campaign to endorse her husband’s dear friend Joe Biden, favoring the Democrat over the Republican who serves as president of the United States, Donald Trump.

What did Levin say to Cindy McCain? “You cost us Arizona,” he said, complaining about the apparent victory Biden scored in winning Arizona in the still-developing election result.

Umm. No, Mark. Mrs. McCain didn’t cost the GOP a state that had been in reliably Republican for many years. Donald Trump did it. All by himself!

He did it by denigrating Sen. McCain’s heroism while being incarcerated for more than five years during the Vietnam War. He castigated McCain repeatedly, even while he was fighting the cancer that eventually would take his life.

Arizonans had elected McCain to the Senate over many years for a simple reason: They respected his lifetime of service to the nation and the sacrifice he endured while being held captive during a time of war.

What’s more, he delivered valuable public service to the constituents he served in Arizona.

My advice to blowhards like Levin is simply to stop looking for others to blame for Donald Trump’s likely loss.

POTUS’s own big mouth did him in.

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Now … it’s time to look ahead

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is it too early to start talking about the new government under the command of a new president?

Aww … what the hey! Let’s go for it!

I won’t yet refer to Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect. I will await the outcome of whatever legal challenges that Donald Trump will mount. My sense is that they have no basis, that Biden will be elected in due course and will begin the transition into taking office as the nation’s 46th president.

Trump is seeking to challenge the outcome of a contest that has spilled over past Election Day. We have some votes still to count. Nevada remains “out there.” So does Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. Biden is within striking distance of the latter three. He could win them, cementing his apparent Electoral College victory.

My initial takeaway from what lies ahead is this: Joe Biden will benefit from a healthy popular vote majority that Donald Trump never had. Trump won the Electoral College in 2016, but lost the actual vote by nearly 3 million ballots. Biden is leading as of this moment by more than 3 million votes and that number is certain to climb.

This dual-track victory will give Biden some political capital he can spend. Trump didn’t have it, even though he acted as if he did when he took office in January 2017. What’s more, Biden is well-versed in the nuts and bolts of legislating whereas Trump never learned how to negotiate with federal legislators.

Biden campaigned to restore the “soul” of a nation ravaged by the chaos and confusion brought to the presidency by Donald Trump. I will await anxiously to see how that restoration will take place. We are, after all, being felled by a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 of us, which tells me that Joe Biden will accept a heaping issue plate when he takes office next January.

One final thought …

I have resisted attaching the word “President” directly in front of Trump’s name. I make no apologies for that. I am looking forward to referencing the words and deeds of President Joe Biden.

national news

Don’t do it, Mr. POTUS

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I had hoped a good night’s sleep would refresh me this morning, giving me a chance to look back on what we witnessed last night with a fresh set of eyes and a fresh outlook.

I didn’t get that sleep-filled respite. I awoke this morning around 3; my wife had been up about an hour already.

We watched the presidential election  returns roll in Tuesday night, then went to bed thinking the worst was about to happen … that Donald J. Trump would squeak/slither his way to a second term.

I heard he declared “victory” about 2 a.m. I am glad I was dosing when he did that.

Then, lo and behold, after sitting up for a time during the wee hours with my wife and after going back to the rack for a couple of hours, I found out this morning that Joe Biden took the lead in Wisconsin, that his lead in Nevada was holding, that he then took the lead in Michigan.

If he wins those three states, he gets to 270 electoral votes. He is elected president. He can begin transitioning from private citizen to commander in chief and head of state.

Oh, but wait! Trump likely won’t allow that to happen. He’s going to take this matter to the highest court in the land, with its three justices whom Trump nominated and the Senate confirmed. What in the world is he going to challenge? That the vote counting was done illegally? That someone “rigged” the election to produce a Biden victory? That Martians landed on Earth overnight and voted illegally for the former vice president?

He hasn’t produced a shred of evidence of anything being done illegally.

That brings me to this point, which is that if the Supreme Court’s justices have any sense of honor they will toss whatever complaint Trump brings to them into the crapper and say the allegations are without merit and do not deserve to be heard.

I have this strange belief that the court would do the right thing.

With that I feel a good bit better than I did when I went to bed last night. I now must come to grips with how Donald Trump managed to make this election as close as it has turned out to be.

More on that later.

national news

It ain’t over

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now. This is what serious political drama looks like.

Pundits are comparing this suspense to 2016, when Donald Trump shocked the civilized world by defeating Hillary Clinton to be elected president of the United States.

I liken what we’re going through to 2000, when George W. Bush was elected president through a 5 to 4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to stop the recount of votes in Florida; Bush held a 537-vote lead and then won the state’s electoral votes to become president.

Here’s what might play out as we await the last returns from the 2020 race: Joe Biden has 238 electoral votes in the bank; he needs 270 to win election. If he holds onto his slim leads in Nevada and Wisconsin and then manages to catch Donald Trump in Michigan (which is a distinct possibility), he gets to — drum roll — precisely 270 electoral votes.

Is that the end of it? Hah! Hardly! Trump will challenge the results. There might be a recount in, say, Michigan and Wisconsin. Does Trump ask the SCOTUS to stop the recount if Biden is still ahead?

Well, I harken back to what the great Winston Churchill once said about democracy, and I am paraphrasing it here. He called it the most inefficient, cumbersome system of government ever invented … but the best we could ever have. The democratic process is playing out in real time, folks.

national news

Is it over … yet?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Good morning, world.

I had hoped to awake to the news of a completed presidential election and the dawning of a new age in Washington, D.C., or perhaps the return to a formerly civil, collegial era in national politics.

Silly me. It didn’t happen, at least not this morning.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump remained locked in a political death match to see who between them gets to 270 electoral votes. Yes, Biden leads the actual vote and has a plurality of Electoral College votes. However, an electoral vote plurality doesn’t put him over the top.

I won’t try to assess how the returns have developed into what we Bidhave at this moment, which is a state of utter confusion and chaos.

Instead, I am going to lament a result that isn’t what I had hoped for or, frankly, expected.

I am not going to despair just yet. Joe Biden can still pick off Wisconsin’s electoral votes; Michigan might still be within reach, along with Nevada.

Still, I want to remind everyone who might have read my words in a few previous blog posts that I wasn’t going to declare a Joe Biden election to be a certainty, given Donald Trump’s hocus pocus victory in 2016.

Yes, it was my hope to awaken this morning to welcome a President-elect Biden.

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day or the day after that. Maybe …